From their actions to their inventions, these amazing women broke major barriers.

It's no secret that women's contributions to history are often overlooked. Just take the Oscar-nominated film Hidden Figures, which brought the story of the black women behind NASA's early success to the big screen for the first time ever. And Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn, and Mary Jackson were not alone.

Basically, women have always been kicking butt—and it's sadly taken history a while to notice. In honor of Women's History Month, we took a look at 15 amazing women who have set records, broken barriers, and made the world a better place with their achievements:

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Simone Biles

There was so much hype and pressure around this 19-year-old phenom leading up to the 2016 Rio Olympics—and she proved why. Simone Biles, the three-time all-around World Champion, dominated at her debut Olympics, taking home five medals: gold in the team, individual all-around, vault, and floor competition, and bronze on the beam. She’s the first U.S. woman to win Olympic gold in vault, and joins Mary Lou Retton, Shannon Miller, and Nastia Liukin in a tie for the most medals won by a U.S. female gymnast in a single Olympics. (Dance your way fit with High-Intensity Dance Cardio, the first-ever socanomics DVD!)

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Caitlyn Jenner

After months of candidness about her transition, Caitlyn made her "official" debut on the cover of Vanity Fair in June 2015. "If I was lying on my deathbed and I had kept this secret and never ever did anything about it, I would be lying there saying, 'You just blew your entire life,'" she said in the accompanying article.

After her debut, Caitlyn broke President Obama’s Twitter record by nabbing more than one million followers in four hours. Caitlyn also starred in the reality series I Am Cait, which focused on transgender issues. She received the Arthur Ashe Courage Award during the 2015 ESPY Awards, making her the third consecutive LGBT person to receive the award after Michael Sam and Robin Roberts.

We often associate the names Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony with women getting the right to vote, but the contributions of Ida B. Wells shouldn't be overlooked. Best known for her work in the early civil rights movement, Ida also started the Alpha Suffrage Club of Chicago, which was the first African-American women’s suffrage organization, according to the Washington Post. In 1913 she attended the Women’s Suffrage Parade in Washington, D.C., despite white organizers telling her and other black women to march at the back of the line. She refused, and pushed her way to march at the front of her state’s delegation.

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Katie Ledecky

As the youngest (yet most dominant) female swimmer on Team USA, Katie's five medals in Rio put her in pretty good company: She's only the second woman to win three individual freestyle events at a single Olympics, the third American woman to win four gold medals at a single Olympics, and she's tied with Janet Evans and Brooke Bennett as the only U.S. women to win back-to-back 800-meter freestyle Olympic golds. Her 800-meter free time of 8:04.79 marks the fifth time she has lowered the world record in that event.

Getting fired, blacklisted, and censored never stopped New York journalist Barbara Seaman from reporting the truth. In 1969, an early form of the Pill contained dangerously high levels of synthetic hormones. Seaman, then 34, exposed the risks in her book The Doctors' Case Against the Pill. It sparked a U.S. Senate hearing that mandated warning labels on oral contraceptives—the first of any prescription drug to carry them.

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Jazz Jennings

Jazz is only 16, but she's already a YouTube star, spokesmodel, reality TV star, and one of the youngest publicly-documented people to be identified as transgender. Jazz rose to fame in 2007 after appearing on 20/20 at 6 years old and carefully articulating about how she identifies as a girl. Jazz stars on the TLC reality show I Am Jazz, which follows her life as a transgender teen, and she’s a co-founder of the TransKids Purple Rainbow Foundation with her parents. Jazz published a memoir in 2016 called Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen. Despite her fame, Jazz told The Advocate in 2015 that she just wants to be known as an "average girl." "If someone's okay with being the 'transgender girl,' that’s fine, but that's not me," she says.

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Erin Pizzey

Battered and abused women in downtown London had nowhere to go until this influential woman, Erin Pizzey, the daughter of a British diplomat, fought to give them a safe haven. In 1971, Pizzey, then 32, opened her home to the abused women she met while working on a community project. This led her to start Chiswick Women's Aid, the world's first women's refuge, where females were offered counseling and a place to stay. Now called Refuge, the organization helps more than 60,000 people a year.

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Ibtihaj Muhammad

Not only did the fencer become the first American Muslim woman to compete at the Olympics in a hijab, but her dynamic performance in Rio helped her and fellow saber teammates Monica Aksamit, Dagmara Wozniak, and Mariel Zagunis win the bronze medal in the team event.

Laverne became the first openly transgender person to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy in the acting category for her role as Sophia Burset on Orange Is the New Black. Laverne regularly speaks and writes about transgender issues, and in 2014, she became the first openly transgender person to appear on the cover of Time magazine.

Laverne is vocal about standing up for the rights of everyday transgender people. "I think there’s something shifting in terms of visibility and media representation," she told the Telegraph in 2016. "But in terms of the day-to-day lives of trans people, we still experience violence at a disproportionate rate, as well as homelessness, unemployment, the denial of health care, and being criminalized and incarcerated."

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Mary Pickford

Long before Julia Roberts, there was Mary Pickford (1892-1979)—America's first sweetheart and international star. During her career of 236 films, including Stella Maris, she cofounded United Artists, a movie studio that set out to give actors and independent filmmakers more creative freedom. She also established her namesake foundation, a nationwide nonprofit that supports the arts.

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Simone Manuel

Before she clinched gold with the ladies in the medley relay, this 20-year-old took the top spot in the 100-meter freestyle, becoming the first African-American woman to win an individual Olympic gold medal in swimming. She finished her debut Olympics with four medals, including silver in the 50-meter free and the 4x100-meter free relay.

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Rachel Carson

There was no environmental awareness movement before Rachel Carson. In 1962 she wrote the book Silent Spring (still in print)—a searing look at the widespread ecological damage caused by agricultural chemicals. It sparked the U.S. ban of the pesticide DDT and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.

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Fallon Fox

Fallon is the first openly transgender African American athlete in mixed martial arts history. Fallon revealed that she was transsexual in 2013 after a reporter planned to publish a story about her past without her consent. "These past six years, people have seen me as a woman, not a transsexual," she told Out Sports. "People in the gym, people I train with, it's been great, it's been awesome. I'm just a woman to them. I don't want that to go away. It's unfortunate that it has to." Fallon has repeatedly defended herself against critics who claim she has an unfair advantage in MMA, and even wrote an essay for SB Nation’s Bloody Elbow on the topic. "I'm a transgender woman," she wrote. "I deserve equal treatment and respect to other types of women. I feel that all of this is so ridiculously unnecessary and horribly mean spirited."

Ruby rose to fame in 1960 at the age of 6 when she became the first black child to attend an all-white elementary school in the South. Ruby was born the year that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to end racial segregation in public schools (via Brown v. the Board of Education), but southern states—including Louisiana, where Ruby went to school—refused to integrate, the National Women’s History Museum reports. Ruby had to be escorted by four federal marshals to school every day that year, walking past crowds that screamed at her. Ruby’s family suffered as a result—her dad lost his job and grocery stores wouldn’t sell to her mom, but she inspired other black children to enroll in all-white schools and help end segregated education.

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Claressa Shields

She was one of the 15 women to watch in Rio, and in one of the final gold-medal matches of the 2016 Olympics, she proved why: The 21-year-old middleweight boxer became the first U.S. boxer—male or female—to ever win back-to-back gold medals.

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